Activities of the Sub-Regional Representation for South-East Asia are summarised as following Programmes:
The SEAFMD Campaign is a highly ambitious but successful programme that has achieved significant successes since it commenced in 1997. It deals with a disease that has major adverse socio-economic impacts on food production systems and inhibits economic development, particularly in the area of trade. It has as its key objective “to coordinate animal disease control activities between countries; provide technical advice, ensure coherent strategies and seek political and financial support to achieve FMD Freedom in the Region.”
All 8 member countries belong to ASEAN, namely: Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
Key areas of focus for SEAFMD in 2010 will be the review of the 2020 SEAFMD Roadmap; a stronger emphasis on advocacy with high level government (especially Ministers), the development of vaccination strategies and protocols (especially in preparation for HPED), socio-economic studies on FMD control (and SEAFMD’s contribution) and assessing both the nature and location of interventions based on animal movements and zoning research. The SEAFMD programme will also be seeking funding for a fourth phase covering 2011 -2015.
- OIE/AusAID Programme on Strengthening Veterinary Services in South East Asia (PSVS)
The OIE/AusAID Programme to Strengthen Veterinary Services in South East Asia (PSVS) which assists member countries with improving their veterinary services to better meet OIE international standards. It has recently undergone a refocus that sees it now providing close support to the broader OIE Programme for Strengthening Veterinary Services (the PVS Pathway, using the OIE-PVS Tool and PVS Gap Analysis) initiatives to assist in realizing their full potential. It has a key objective of “enabling national governments to attract resources from industry, government, and donors to support and implement a coherent, costed, national plan to improve veterinary services.”
PSVS is a three‐year program co‐funded by AusAID and DAFF. PSVS has delivered effective activities at both sub-regional and national levels to advocate for, raise awareness, provide strategic advice and provide specialist technical technical training to member countries on the strengthening of their veterinary services. The member countries include Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Timor Leste and Papua New Guinea.
The new overall objective of the programme is ““enabling national governments to attract resources from government and donors to support and implement a coherent, costed, national plan to improve veterinary services.”
The key to this is more closely aligning PSVS activity to better support OIE PVS initiatives, including PVS Gap Analysis, and permit a broader and deeper engagement of countries in the PVS Pathway of; initial PVS evaluations (using OIE standards on quality and evaluation of veterinary services) > PVS Gap Analysis and country strategic planning > resourcing and implementation by donors, agencies and countries.
- Highly Pathogenic Emerging and Re-Emerging Animal Diseases (HPED) Programme - OIE Component:
The OIE component of the new European Union (EU / European Commission services) Regional Cooperation Programme on Highly Pathogenic Emerging and Re-Emerging Diseases (HPED) which extends throughout Asia and has strategic animal disease vaccine bank and veterinary services capacity building components. Its key objective is “Strengthening Veterinary Services in Asia, Regional Vaccine Bank and Capacity Building for surveillance, early detection and eradication of highly pathogenic emerging and re-emerging animal diseases.”
The program will mainly fund the strengthening of human and veterinary public health services and the improvement of curricula in the region; cooperation between human and animal health sectors in regard to epidemiology training and disease management; a sound regional communication strategy including inter-ministerial meetings; and the establishment of a clear chain of command in terms of emergent disease events including improvement of border control.
Concerning the OIE component (7 million € contribution over four years), the OIE SRR-SEA has been recognized as the main implementer at regional level. The project activities implementation will be overseen and guided within existing coordination mechanisms, namely the Regional Steering Committee for Asia and the Pacific of the Global Framework for Progressive Control of Transboundary Animal Diseases (GF-TADs).
